The ethics of autonomous vehicles

[potsy]

I'm not sure what I'm most amazed by..

That cats and dogs are now using pedestrian crossings, or that they are expected to know to only cross on a green light!

Ridiculous scenarios.

 

[theclaud]

Where did it mention any speed values I couldn't see them?

It didn't. Which is absurd.

 

[theclaud]

You miss the point of Trolleyology (no i did not just make that word up, google it) - the intention is to explore YOUR moral choices in closely defined situations removing the white noise of real world choices.

Saved you the google.....

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/is-america/201401/trolleyology

Yes, and the point of invoking the whole trolleyology malarky around autonomous vehicles is to pretend there are difficult moral choices involved, in order to distract everyone from the very obvious cut-and-dried moral choice they really need to make, which is to not to value different numbers and categories of people differently, but to value people above vehicles.

 

[PK99]

Yes, and the point of invoking the whole trolleyology malarky around autonomous vehicles is to pretend there are difficult moral choices involved, in order to distract everyone from the very obvious cut-and-dried moral choice they really need to make, which is to not to value different numbers and categories of people differently, but to value people above vehicles.

I think you are deliberately missing the point and choosing to see it purely from an us (cyclists/pedestrians) vs cars perspective.

AI systems of all forms will need to be programmed, there will be implied moral choices embedded in the programming.

 

[theclaud]

I think you are deliberately missing the point and choosing to see it purely from an us (cyclists/pedestrians) vs cars perspective.

AI systems of all forms will need to be programmed, there will be implied moral choices embedded in the programming.

I'm deliberately ignoring what I'm being told is the point, which is a slightly different thing. There's an opportunity here to curb the power of vehicles to endanger and intimidate people - programming a slow-moving vehicle to stop or slow down further instead of hitting things is not so much of an exciting AI challenge as programming a fast-moving one how to choose who to maim or kill, but it's the thing we need to be talking about.

 

[raleighnut]

Why isn't stopping an option ffs

 

[theclaud]

Why isn't stopping an option ffs

 

[FishFright]

Why isn't stopping an option ffs

As already pointed out it's collecting data about peoples reactions to no win situations so by definition stopping is not an option.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I'm deliberately ignoring what I'm being told is the point, which is a slightly different thing.

Not really if enough people tell them that the pedestrians are more important than the passengers then they will have to factor that it, one of the solutions they will come up with is to slow the vehicles down. Start at worst case scenario & then move backwards, but at no point should passengers become more important than pedestrians.

 

[PK99]

Not really if enough people tell them that the pedestrians are more important than the passengers then they will have to factor that it, one of the solutions they will come up with is to slow the vehicles down. Start at worst case scenario & then move backwards, but at no point should passengers become more important than pedestrians.

Now that is where things get interesting.

The whole us and them thing is about cyclist v motorists.

Remove the motorist, insert self driving Uber taxi.

What choice should the Uber Program make - kill a single pedestrian by saving its 5 passengers or kill its 5 passengers?

It gets really interesting when you find that people give different answers to that question depending on the gender/age/status/fitness of the single pedestrian.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

It gets really interesting when you find that people give different answers to that question depending on the gender/age/status/fitness of the single pedestrian.

Member of your family, friend, acquaintance, stranger

 

[jefmcg]

To reiterated the points made above, the car is travelling through a built up area so fast that if runs into pedestrians it will guarantee to kill them, and if it runs into a wall, it will kill all the passengers in the car?

Yeah, it's going way too fast. Slow down. And maintain the braking system properly!

As an aside, can I say I hate the trolley problem? There is no way you could guarantee the fat man would fall where you think he would, or that he would stop a trolley that has enough momentum to kill 5 people. It's a very stupid thought experiment.

 

[PK99]

To reiterated the points made above, the car is travelling through a built up area so fast that if runs into pedestrians it will guarantee to kill them, and if it runs into a wall, it will kill all the passengers in the car?

Yeah, it's going way too fast. Slow down. And maintain the braking system properly!

As an aside, can I say I hate the trolley problem? There is no way you could guarantee the fat man would fall where you think he would, or that he would stop a trolley that has enough momentum to kill 5 people. It's a very stupid thought experiment.

No it's not, it is a very common and useful technique - reducing the number of variables in a controlled experiment across large numbers of people.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Now that is where things get interesting.

The whole us and them thing is about cyclist v motorists.

Remove the motorist, insert self driving Uber taxi.

What choice should the Uber Program make - kill a single pedestrian by saving its 5 passengers or kill its 5 passengers?

It gets really interesting when you find that people give different answers to that question depending on the gender/age/status/fitness of the single pedestrian.

An uber taxi travelling at 20mph is not going to kill its passengers if it hits a barrier is it?

 

[mjr]

An uber taxi travelling at 20mph is not going to kill its passengers if it hits a barrier is it?

But might Uber prioritise lack of mild discomfort to its passengers over the deaths of non- customers? As their app requests access to transmit features of the phone, it could start broadcasting an Uber customer signal to help its self- driving taxis spot customers walking and factor that into its decision- making.